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Biography

Click here for current PhD opportunities in CHE. But feel free to email me to discuss projects outside these areas and alternative sources of funding.

School Position: Emeritus Professor of Chemistry

Peter Belton graduated in chemistry from Chelsea College London, where he also obtained his PhD in 1972 for work on transport properties in liquids. His post-doctoral research was on NMR and was carried out at UEA with Prof. KJ Packer FRS. He joined Unilever research at the Port Sunlight Laboratories in 1974 and, following a brief spell as a visiting professor at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, moved to the Institute of Food research to set up a spectroscopy laboratory. During his stay at the Institute he was variously Head of Department, Head of Norwich Laboratory and more lately was head of the Food Materials Division. He joined UEA in February 2001 to take up a joint IFR / UEA Chair in Biomaterials Science. He is also Senior Visiting Fellow at The Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan.

He is a past President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology and a co- founder of the international conference series ”Applications of Magnetic Resonance in Food Science”.

Main research interests are in the application of spectroscopy to the understanding of the structure function relationships in biopolymer assemblies and carbohydrates and for analysis of complex systems. Principal techniques are solid state NMR, NMR relaxometry, infrared spectroscopy and dielectrics. There is a long standing interest in the structure and dynamics of wheat proteins and other plant storage proteins. Current research activities are to understand the nature of the interactions and stability in pharmaceutical formulations. Other areas include the interaction of biopolymers and water and the use of photothermal methods for analysis. Interest in cereals has extended to the African cereal sorghum; research at the moment is concerned with making biodegradable plastics and other products for pharmaceutical applications from sorghum and other proteins and enhancing the nutritional value of sorghum.

Cereal Proteins

Protein hydration using dielectric and infrared spectroscopy

This project is measuring the changes in protein dynamic and structure at a range of levels of protein hydration to understand how the protein behaviour changes with water content. This work is intended to enhance the understanding of the mechanisms by which proteins can be prepared in the dry state for long term storage in pharmaceutical preparations. We have been using Gluten as test material to develop the methods as we have studied related materials by other methods in the past.

The figure illustrates the changes in the low frequency dielectric dispersion as a function of water content in gluten.

Relevant publications

DMR Georget and PS Belton “Effects of Temperature and Water Content on The Secondary Structure of Wheat Gluten Studied by FTIR Spectroscopy” Biomacromolecules, 2006, 7, 469.

Use of cereal proteins as pharmaceutical exipients

These projects use a wide variety of techniques to characterise and understand the way in which drugs may be incorperated in matrices which both preserve them and and sure correct delivery to the desired part of the body.

Structure and dynamics in gluten proteins

Some years ago a theory of gluten viscoelasticity called the “loop and train model” was developed by us. Recent work has concentrated on testing the theory by examining the structural changes and rheology by simultaneously measuring mechanical deformation and changes in the infrared spectra. We have shown that the predicted conversion from beta turn to beta sheet is observed on extension and that there is a cumulative development of sheet with repeated extension. Further work has shown that the details of rheo- spectroscopic behaviour are dependent on both the wheat variety and agronomic history.

Sorghum proteins

Sorghum is a cereal indigenous to Africa that withstands both drought and flooding and is well suited to cultivation in sub-Saharan Africa. Together with maize and millet it forms a major component of the local diet, especially of subsistence farmers. The main sorghum varieties grown for human consumption have significant problems of digestibility: uniquely for cereals the protein content of the sorghum flour decreases in digestibility on cooking in water. The degree of decrease reported is between 20 and 50% and represents a significant loss of nutrition for a population that has low protein intake. Our research is concerned to understand this phenomenon with a view to finding routes to increase digestibility.

We are also looking at ways of adding value to the sorghum crop by making biodegradable plastics from the sorghum seed storage protein kafirin.

Relevant publications

PS Belton and JRN Taylor “Pseudocereals and Less Common Cereals” Springer, Berlin, 2002

Member Scientific Committee and session Chair EU/ ICC Cereal Conference 2002: Implementation of the European Research Area. Vienna

Session chair and member of the organising committee 6th International Conference on the Applications of Magnetic Resonance to Food Science, Paris

Invited lectures “Applications of Spectroscopy to Biomaterials” and “Structure Function Relationships in High Molecular Weight Subunits” Royal Australian Chemical Institute meeting “From Grain to Gain”, Christchurch, New Zealand

Member scientific committee, session chair, invited lecture “How Much Information is there in an NMR Spectrum?” 8th International Conference on Applications of Magnetic Resonance to Food Science, Nottingham.

Invited Lecture “The Interactions of Water in Food” Moscow International Congress

Biotechnology: State of the Art and Prospects of Development and International Exhibition Biotech World, Moscow, Russian Federation

Member scientific committee, session chair, invited lecture “How Much Information is there in an NMR Spectrum?” 9th International Conference on Applications of Magnetic Resonance to Food Science, Reykjavik, Iceland “Water/Biopolymer Interactions: Comparison of NMR with other Techniques”

Invited lecture “Spectroscopic Approaches to Understanding Water in Food - a Critical Appraisal” 14th World Congress of Food Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.

2009

Plenary lecture “Hydration of Food Biopolymers some Myths and Mysteries” III International Congress of Science and Food Technology. Córdoba, Argentina